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be more righteous part 3 - attack the root

Jesus says we need to be more righteous than the Pharisees, who appeared
to be very well behaved people (read part 1, part 2). To understand, we need to
look below the surface.

Matthew 5:27-28

You
have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say
to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has
already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Although not everyone today would be bothered by being called an adulterer, the
audience Jesus was speaking to would be shocked at such an accusation. Their pride at not breaking the law is shattered by Jesus, who again goes below the surface and identifies lust as the same root sin, again proving us all guilty.

No
doubt we could excuse our "looking with lustful intent" and even maintain some sort of pride that no action has been taken and no
"cheating" has taken place, but Jesus blows that idea out of the water.
We are all guilty. We
may keep the letter of the law externally but we break it internally.
We might make a distinction between the two but God doesn't.

Matthew 5: 29-30

If
your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it
is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body
be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it
off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your
members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.

The
Pharisees' righteousness did not have a violent attitude to sin, it was
happy to maintain an appearance of keeping sin at bay but was not
concerned with going deeper and digging out the root. Our righteousness
needs to be greater than the Pharisees and that means looking below the
surface of our sin. In our own strength, maybe we can keep the visible
weeds at bay. Jesus attacks the root.

[1] Where as
the early church father Origen, followed these words literally and
castrated himself, we can be confident that Jesus that Jesus didn't
expect us to be chopping body parts off! Our eye and hand does not cause
us to sin, we could chop them off and the sin would still be there.